Americans opening homes, lives, to flood refugees

The offers go on and on -- "Free Rent in Oregon!!" "It's Ohio, but it's comfortable." "Rebuild your life in Cleveland." "Offering my sofa in N.H."
From California to Connecticut and nearly every state in between, Americans are flooding Internet Web sites with offers to open their homes, lives and wallets to evacuees fleeing flood-ravaged New Orleans.
"People have a responsibility to help each other," said Dirk Knudsen, who is providing a free furnished apartment in Beaverton, Oregon, to a New Orleans mother and her two children. "We're not wealthy, but we can provide a safe haven. A lot of people want to do that."
Not since the Civil War have so many Americans been forced to leave home with little but the clothes on their backs. The American Red Cross this week is providing temporary shelters in 18 states for 142,000, but said the number needing homes is much higher. Some estimates put the figure at well over a half million.
Churches, cities and states are trying to fill the need by placing people in low-income apartments, community centers, national guard facilities, sports stadiums and elsewhere, but thousands of individuals want to provide personal havens.
A family in the tiny community of Codell, Kansas, has offered to set up two mobile homes on their land and provide food, clothes and household items.
"We will bring you here or help you get here. We will help you get back on your feet," their Web posting reads.
'THE BEST THING I CAN DO'
A family in Iowa is offering a finished basement and private bathroom for a small family to use rent free "for as long as you need."
A firefighter in Petaluma, California, is offering his living room for a displaced family.
And a single father in Williamsburg, Kentucky, has offered to share his modest 3-bedroom home with up to four adults or teenagers and pet dogs, if they have them.
"I live paycheck to paycheck and I don't have a lot of money to donate, so this is the best thing I can do," said 34-year-old Rob Blatchley, who admits to being a little scared about letting strangers share his home.
There are more than 88,500 beds available at katrinahousing.org, which says it has already placed over 3,000 people. And hurricanehousing.org says it has more than 150,000 such offers. Craigslist.org is another popular site.
"The government is ineffective so it is empowering to have groups coalesce like this across the country," said Lee Daniels, an Arizona technology director who helped create an Internet housing match forum. "It is something people can do other than throw money at the problem."
Many of those reaching out to offer refuge say they were motivated by televised images of the suffering hurricane survivors as well as frustration and anger at the sluggish government reaction.
The frustration is continuing.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, American Red Cross, and Salvation Army, all assisting those displaced by Hurricane Katrina, say they do not have systems for matching the evacuees with individuals offering housing.
Indeed, in many cases, some officials said they are actively discouraging the private outreach efforts, saying putting strangers in private homes could be unsafe.
That has left private housing placement and transportation largely up to ad hoc groups of volunteers who scurry from shelter to shelter with laptops and computer printouts in hand trying to match those needing housing with the housing offers.
"We just want to help," said Dawn Phlieger, a Kansas mother of four who has posted housing offers on several sites. "These are fellow Americans. They're hurting. They need homes."